Shutdown

[z31maniac]

^I get that.........I don't understand why they haven't figured it out.

[nando]

Wow tits, you should get out more and read the constitution for yourself, something I'd wager you've never done, nor will do in your lifetime.
It's plain and simple, and if you and nando studied history instead of sleeping thru class, you'd actually have some understanding of why the US dollar is the world's reserve currency.
Less than 10% of federal revenues are used to service the debt. Do you two understand math? The debt has to be serviced first, everything else comes after. So the messiah flapping his lips about default is one of two things;
1. Intentional lying (no surprise)
2. Fucking ignorant

so failing to pay other obligations, such as social security, isn't a default? I guess if I pay my mortgage but not my credit cards, that's OK with the bank?

how can you say on one hand, we're spending WAY more than we take in - and then out of the other side of your mouth, say that we have plenty of cash coming in to cover our obligations? huh? talk about not understanding math.

do you realize if we cut 100% of discretionary spending, we'd still be borrowing money to pay for mandatory spending?

[nando]

^I get that.........I don't understand why they haven't figured it out.

because at their core, that's who the GOP is - angry old white people like GWB.

that leaves people who are fiscally conservative, but believe in science and don't hate other religions, gays, minorities, etc. out in the cold.

[nando]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/09/us...-bad.html?_r=0

this pretty much sums up the GOP position on any important debate:

On Wall Street, among business leaders and in a vast majority of university economics departments, the threat of significant instability resulting from a debt default is not in question. But a lot of Republicans simply do not believe it.

The experts, the investors, the businesses say it would be bad - but the GOP simply "doesn't want to believe it". it's all a left wing conspiracy, right?

like these two liberal commie scum organizations:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, both bastions of Republican support, sent letters to Congress on Tuesday urging action on the debt ceiling.

“Our nation has never defaulted in the past, and failing to raise the debt limit in a timely fashion will seriously disrupt our fragile economy and have a ripple effect throughout the world,” wrote Jay Timmons, the president of the manufacturers’ group.

in other news, I heard the earth is flat and only 6,000 years old.

these are the people running the show:

"[the U.S.'s funding of al Qaeda in Syria] happened and as of today the United States is willingly, knowingly, intentionally sending arms to terrorists, now what this says to me, I’m a believer in Jesus Christ, as I look at the End Times scripture, this says to me that the leaf is on the fig tree and we are to understand the signs of the times, which is your ministry, we are to understand where we are in God’s end times history. Rather than seeing this as a negative, we need to rejoice, Maranatha Come Lord Jesus, His day is at hand. When we see up is down and right is called wrong, when this is happening, we were told this; these days would be as the days of Noah.”

fuck me.

[z31maniac]

Jesus that's terrifying.

[herbivor]

So it sounds like there is a majority in the House that are willing to reopen the government with "no strings attached" to the ACA. So they have the votes, Obama knows it, so why even negotiate with the RWNJs when they are in the minority amongst the people and congress. Sounds like Speaker Boner is the problem here. They should start a countdown ticker on how long he has left as the majority house leader.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/10/08/votes-are-there-to-break-shutdown-but-not-the-will/?hpt=hp_t2

[gwb72tii]

so failing to pay other obligations, such as social security, isn't a default? I guess if I pay my mortgage but not my credit cards, that's OK with the bank?

how can you say on one hand, we're spending WAY more than we take in - and then out of the other side of your mouth, say that we have plenty of cash coming in to cover our obligations? huh? talk about not understanding math.

do you realize if we cut 100% of discretionary spending, we'd still be borrowing money to pay for mandatory spending?

we borrow roughly 30% of every dollar spent. so, if the house refuses to allow the treasury to issue additional bonds to fund current spending levels, the government has to cut spending. it won't have enough money to cover wages, programs (solyndra?), and $40k toilets. cuts will have to be made because there would be no ability to borrow any longer.

so, where does the messiah chose to cut? he cannot legally refuse to pay on debt obligations of the US government. it is in the constitution. social security is not technically a direct obligation of the US treasury. but federal law mandates treasury honor the IOU's it issued Social Security when demanded, so he cannot legally refuse to pay Social Security obligations either. that's why this whole argument is about spending, not about defaulting. republicans like to spend our money, democrats are republicans on steroids.

he knows all this, and yet he spins a different tale. stupid? or lying for effect?

and guess what herb, rububs control the house because....................drumroll............... ...........the people elected them to do what they are doing, reign in a spend and tax big government statist (sounds like rwj) far left hack liberal president.

oh, and rwh, just to make it clear. there is no interest earned on the iou's issued to social security. interest is merely another iou. there is no trust fund. it is the ultimate ponzi scheme.
and how do you suppose treasury finds the money to pay on those iou's?

[rwh11385]

^I get that.........I don't understand why they haven't figured it out.

Oh yeah, well that is the better question indeed. But they are called the stupid party for a reason - they ignore facts they don't like and assume things will turm out how they want, even if not in touch with reality (election 2012 anyone?).

[rwh11385]

we borrow roughly 30% of every dollar spent. so, if the house refuses to allow the treasury to issue additional bonds to fund current spending levels, the government has to cut spending. it won't have enough money to cover wages, programs (solyndra?), and $40k toilets. cuts will have to be made because there would be no ability to borrow any longer.

so, where does the messiah chose to cut? he cannot legally refuse to pay on debt obligations of the US government. it is in the constitution. social security is not technically a direct obligation of the US treasury. but federal law mandates treasury honor the IOU's it issued Social Security when demanded, so he cannot legally refuse to pay Social Security obligations either. that's why this whole argument is about spending, not about defaulting. republicans like to spend our money, democrats are republicans on steroids.

he knows all this, and yet he spins a different tale. stupid? or lying for effect?

and guess what herb, rububs control the house because....................drumroll............... ...........the people elected them to do what they are doing, reign in a spend and tax big government statist (sounds like rwj) far left hack liberal president.

Hey George, why don't you actually put down numbers for where cuts can and would come from instead of just throwing around assumptions? Is it because you can't do math or just would rather live on assumptions? And look like an idiot by relying on calling the president "messiah" instead of actually making a real case?

How does a push for reigning in spending give the House the legitimacy to shut down the federal government over an issue they lost multiple times when trying to use the standard processes of Congress? Did the American people vote them in to hijack the country and abuse their position to extort influence against the will of the populace? All this talk about spending refuses to acknowledge that their actions were uncalled for and not what 72% of the people want. But they don't care about who voted for them or why, they put their own motivations ahead of that.

oh, and rwh, just to make it clear. there is no interest earned on the iou's issued to social security. interest is merely another iou. there is no trust fund. it is the ultimate ponzi scheme.
and how do you suppose treasury finds the money to pay on those iou's?

So if I have Treasuries and get paid interest in more Treasuries, then I don't actually earn interest? That's funny George math, must be why only people who are worse than you would ever trust you. "The annual effective interest rate (the average rate of return on all investments over a one-year period) for the OASI and DI Trust Funds, combined, was 4.091 percent in 2012." So I guess that's a lie from SSA.gov

Or are Treasury bills, like the ones you invest in, worthless?

The whole conversation about government owing itself is indeed silly since it does not reflect the true nation of SS liabilities when talking about current inflow and outflow and the trust fund's interest covering the difference until the 2030s. Right now, SS is using up its past surpluses to pay for the amount that benefit payments exceed tax revenues. Since it earned more than it gave out for years, it is still solvent and not bankrupt as you claimed ignorantly. Congress did reach into the piggy bank and borrow money from these surpluses and has to pay it back, but this does not reflect money that the government owes to the people in the future but rather itself now. Looking at the $2.7T in IOUs that government needs to pay back to itself in regard to SS is petty cash compared to the actual liability that SS has to worry about in the long term, which is ~$90T. Hence, discussing the 3% of that figure that the government owes itself is meaningless since it ignores the actual amount that social security needs to pay in the future. Hence, we should be concerned with the debt held by the public and also the individual liabilities of the mandatory spending and entitlement programs, without being too overly caught up in the fact that one account overs the other for intragovernmental borrowing when it is simply a drop in the bucket.

And if you think that's something to worry about, don't stop at the federal government but be concerned with state and local pensions, as well as company's defined benefit plans. Being educated and real about the issues instead of simply repeating some extreme blog which puts words in your mouth to parrot would be a start to having a real conversation, instead of you being a puppet of the party which draws power from vapid shells that vote for them and provide unquestioning support of the idiotic logic of the GOP.


Edit - I'll try to break it down in the most simplistic, middle-school education level for ya so you can understand:
Imagine if the government issues new Treasuries to the public and gets enough money to pay its intragovernmental debts.
The total public debt would be ~$16T and the debts to the other federal accounts would be gone.
But, the SS and other accounts would have assets in the amount of the previous intragovernmental debts.
Thus, the net balance for the federal government would still be $16T minus the $4.5T intragovernmental debt amount, or the current debt held by the public.

You get it? Or do I need to teach you basic accounting? It's amazing what you can accomplish if you think for yourself instead of parroting some extreme idiot on a blog or on faux news.

Edit2 - Let's think about it yet another way to boil it down to something you can muster:
What if the surpluses of the past were larger? Let's say the payroll tax was slightly higher than it was changed to in 1983.
If Congress sucked up all the monies, then they would owe SS more.
However, the future liabilities wouldn't change because of it and the year in which SS becomes insolvent is pushed out. (Good thing) The gross debt is higher... but is that increase really meaningful in any way? No. Because the liabilities related to SS are different from the intragovernmental debt related to SS past surpluses!

To return to this:

Yup, and only people with ethics, integrity and morals include obligations the government has promised to pay its own citizens, after taxing those same citizens all their working lives.

But you're a good progressive

Your statement underlines your ignorance that you don't know that the intragovernmental debt related to the SS trust fund is not the obligation to pay people their SS benefits, but rather the obligation for Congress to pay back SS for the money it borrowed from it. If you are going to go about your life as uneducated as you are, I would refrain from arguing because it makes you seem foolish and lazy.

[MF DOOM]

because at their core, that's who the GOP is - angry old white people like GWB.

that leaves people who are fiscally conservative, but believe in science and don't hate other religions, gays, minorities, etc. out in the cold.

Isnt that kind of Libertarian? Not wanting gov intervention in the market place nor in personal lives?


"Since then, House Republicans have passed several minifunding bills that would re-open some crucial and popular parts of the government, which the Democrat-led Senate and President Barack Obama have repeatedly rejected."

Blame game is too easy. And the specifics about my pops insurance is from 45 bucks a week to 225. Also, the girl friends families rate just went up as well. Halliburton upped them for all. did away with the 6k deductible and went to 8k. And she shop i used to work at, im going back to work for them part time, said they no longer do benefits for part timers..

[z31maniac]

Yes. Unfortunately it seems as though the Libertarians are quickly becoming socially Liberal Tea Partiers................carte blanche for corporations with NO interventions doesn't work.

[Vedubin01]

[BraveUlysses]

Oversimplified and inaccurate. Stop pretending that the government's debt is anything like personal debt.

[rwh11385]

Oversimplified and inaccurate. Stop pretending that the government's debt is anything like personal debt.

You forget how easy it is for pundits and others to fool RWNJs into believing what they already wanted to hear.


Even if his plan was based on bad Excel work and is purposefully vague about his solutions (modernizing retirement age), Paul Ryan is actually talking about what matters.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303442004579123943669167898.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

If Mr. Obama decides to talk, he'll find that we actually agree on some things. For example, most of us agree that gradual, structural reforms are better than sudden, arbitrary cuts. For my Democratic colleagues, the discretionary spending levels in the Budget Control Act are a major concern. And the truth is, there's a better way to cut spending. We could provide relief from the discretionary spending levels in the Budget Control Act in exchange for structural reforms to entitlement programs.

These reforms are vital. Over the next 10 years, the Congressional Budget Office predicts discretionary spending—that is, everything except entitlement programs and debt payments—will grow by $202 billion, or roughly 17%. Meanwhile, mandatory spending—which mostly consists of funding for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security—will grow by $1.6 trillion, or roughly 79%. The 2011 Budget Control Act largely ignored entitlement spending. But that is the nation's biggest challenge.

The two political parties have worked together on entitlements before. In 1982, Social Security's trustees warned Congress that the program would go bankrupt within a year. If it had, seniors would have seen an immediate cut in their benefits. Instead, Congress passed a package of reforms—the most important of which was an increase in the retirement age. Because Congress phased in this reform over time, there were no budget savings in the first five years. But through 2012, the savings were $100 billion. In the next 75 years, Social Security's actuaries expect that these reforms will save $4.6 trillion.

Just as a good investment gets higher returns through compound interest, structural reforms produce greater savings over time. Most important, they make the programs more secure. They protect them for current seniors and preserve them for the next generation. That's what the president and Congress should talk about.

Here are just a few ideas to get the conversation started. We could ask the better off to pay higher premiums for Medicare. We could reform Medigap plans to encourage efficiency and reduce costs. And we could ask federal employees to contribute more to their own retirement.

The president has embraced these ideas in budget proposals he has submitted to Congress. And in earlier talks with congressional Republicans, he has discussed combining Medicare's Part A and Part B, so the program will be less confusing for seniors. These ideas have the support of nonpartisan groups like the Bipartisan Policy Center and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, and they would strengthen these critical programs. And all of them would help pay down the debt.

And maybe there is some hope to avoid default (for the what time?):

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303382004579127241553500068?mod=Politics_and_Policy_newsreel_1

President Barack Obama and House Republicans began discussions Thursday on a GOP proposal to extend the nation's borrowing authority for six weeks, marking a new opening in the budget stalemate that risks a U.S. debt crisis.

The proposal, from House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio), would extend U.S. borrowing authority until Nov. 22 with none of the major policy strings Republicans had previously demanded, and which the White House had rejected.

Which is probably a good move for the party:

A new poll shows that Republicans are bearing the brunt of public outrage over the budget impasse. The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found 53% of Americans blamed the GOP for the shutdown, compared with 31% who blamed Mr. Obama. The Republican Party's image has slumped to its lowest level in Journal/NBC polling, which dates to 1989, with more than twice as many people holding negative image of the GOP as a positive one.

And nando, check out this quite interesting piece: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/the-...eed-a-shutdown
The House GOP's Little Rule Change That Guaranteed A Shutdown

[Vedubin01]

And maybe there is some hope to avoid default (for the what time?):

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303382004579127241553500068?mod=Politics_and_Policy_newsreel_1

Raymond McDaniel, President & CEO, Moody's thinks the same thing but differently.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101090387

According to Treasury Direct, the public debt is $47+ billion over the $16.7 Trillion debt limit and no, we have not defaulted. But Im sure everyone is already aware of that